Palliative Care

Events

Many people equate palliative care with the care given only in the last few days or weeks of a person’s life.

This is only one piece of the puzzle. While palliative care can make a big difference in the last few weeks of life, it can and should be introduced much earlier.

Palliative care is focused on improving quality of life, not on curing the illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering.

Palliative care is about doing what is most important to the individual and their family.

Palliative care assists with the physical, emotional and spiritual needs that surround the end of a life.

Palliative care helps people achieve the best possible quality of life right up until the end of life.

It can also begin from the moment of diagnosis, not just in the last few weeks of life. Offering palliative care earlier, most often greatly improves the end-of-life experience for the individual and their family.

While palliative care can be delivered in a hospital or hospice, it can also be provided at home. It involves pain and symptom management, grief counselling and learning how to take care of your loved one.

"Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual." - World Health Oranization

Why does it matter?

You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can, not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.”

Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice

Palliative care is focused on the individual and her/his loved ones, supporting them through life’s final journey.

The aim is to:

Improve quality of life

Provide relief from pain

Assist with the social, emotional and spiritual needs of each person and family

Provide comfort and solace

Palliative care does not focus on curing the illness, but looks at each individual’s needs to support them.

Caregiver Resources

AgingCare.com - This US site provides resources as well as the ability to connect with other caregivers online.